Thursday, April 28, 2022

400 Wax Drawings - Artist Retrospective

2014: The beginning of my crayon-eraser drawing technique and experimental photography.

January 2014. I'm drawing spontaneously with a black crayon and rubbing the wax with my fingers until I get blisters. Then I pick up an eraser and smear the wax without stopping to think. That energy will never leave me. After I make the first marks on a watercolour sheet, I can't put it down. I don't have a pile of unfinished works or 50 drafts of one thing.

I'm doing this because of the ideas. As a self-taught artist whose visual and musical skills run in the family, I understand the importance of curiosity. Today's art in general is quite weak in terms of ideas. True imagination is something you radiate.

As the title of my first display in 2017 suggests, the subconscious and natural forces are my main influences. The metaphysical element in my drawings is something that represents those forces, not just something "abstract."

Am I trying to shock? A response like shock is linked to an element of surprise. Shocking requires intelligence. If you don't have that, or if you're not an interesting person, the response is embarrassment.

63 out of 400 Finnish drawing titles begin with the letter K. The fact that C is not a Finnish letter is the only explanation I can think of. The process of coming up with a title is just as intuitive as my drawing technique. The list of titles is essentially a list of things and emotions. Connecting them in fascinating ways is my life's mission.

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